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The Republicans are the problem. You are the answer.

Image below: Euler Diagram of the American Political Landscape” by Jeff Gates.

Image above: Euler Diagram of the American Political Landscape” by Jeff Gates.

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

“Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?”

I think we’ve been scolding the crumbling press already for decades. To be fair, the article by 2 congressional scholars is plucked from a book they say offers a “panoply” of solutions. Still, scolding the press is just like Scott Walker’s austerity agenda: it’s not working. My advice would be to forget begging to “the press”. YOU are the press or will have to infiltrate the press whether it be by becoming a writer, an editor, a distributor or a publisher. If you already share articles online, or blog, or host others’ blogs you’re already there.

You can’t leave it to the professional press to save yourself – us – from The Right’s lunacy.

If you wanted to hold sway over the “professional safety” of the formal press you’d have to start signing their professional paychecks. You’re on your way to that also by driving their net traffic. Very likely the reason why we’re seeing bills in Congress that hand control of the net to corporations and destroy your privacy [first SOPA and now CISPA].

Got a mimeograph machine? If the answer is “yes”, tweet me up and I’ll buy it. If we can keep beating back censorship bills, the mimeograph machine will be a dust collector. If we can’t, then keep an eye open for people selling “the blue cheddar broadsheet” on a street corner near you.

Related reading:
Ornstein and Mann wrote It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism which is available as of Tuesday May 1st. Here’s an amazon link.